A women’s care nurse in Warwick, Bernelle Richardson works in a career she loves helping mothers with labor, delivery, and postpartum care. She credits Early Head Start as the catalyst that changed her family’s trajectory by providing the high-quality care and family support needed to “level up” to the middle class. With their children in high quality child care programs, Bernelle was able to work towards her nursing degree. Head Start also connected Bernelle’s husband to training to become a certified welder—a high-demand, middle class job.
“I’m so grateful for the transformative impact these programs have had on my family. When my older two children were one and four, we qualified for free, high quality care while my husband and I were both searching for careers to support our growing family,” said Bernelle. “The Early Head Start program was a lifesaver—giving us the peace of mind that our children were receiving reliable, high-quality early learning experiences during their most formative developmental years. This allowed us to focus the necessary time and energy on pursuing careers we love.”
However, when parents like Bernelle move on to better paying jobs and careers that, in theory, should help support expenses such as child care, they lose child care assistance. This leads to financial strain and sometimes even the difficult decision to leave the workforce in order to save money. Parents are forced to choose between staying home for 10 to 12 years to take care of their own children, or dedicating 50 percent to 90 percent of their income to child care.
“During the final year of my nursing program, we lost our Head Start eligibility due to our increase in household income. I almost gave up on my career plans. It was so incredibly hard to piece together care. But I managed to persevere and pull together a patchwork of care through the kindness of friends,” said Bernelle. “It was an incredibly stressful time—finishing school, while leaving my kids in inconsistent and unreliable care options that were not giving them a solid educational foundation.”
Today, Bernelle and her husband have careers they love—her husband as a welder for a major welding company in Rhode Island, and Bernelle as a women’s care nurse at a hospital. Yet even with two children in public school, they still have to pay $2400 to $2500 per month out-of-pocket for child care and after-school care—more than their monthly mortgage payment.
Bernelle’s family is not alone in this struggle, as recent data shows that 9 out of 10 families in Rhode Island can’t afford child care. Although the U.S. government considers spending 7 percent or less of household income on child care as a measure of affordability, as of August 2023, most U.S. parents spend at least three times above that benchmark, which is not sustainable. Bernelle recently traveled to Washington D.C. to represent Rhode Island and share her family’s story at the Strolling Thunder advocacy event.
“It was an eye-opening experience. Through conversations I had, I realized that many of the policymakers (in other states, thankfully) are not as supportive of early childhood funding as our Rhode Island delegation,” said Bernelle. “They come from a place of privilege, and don’t understand that most families can’t afford to have one parent stay at home to care for their children. That is not the reality for most Rhode Islanders, and most Americans. Most of us need to work to pay for school, housing, and all the other costs of living that are constantly rising.”
Bernelle urges legislators to increase funding for the RI Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) and lift family income limits so that more Rhode Island families can access affordable, quality child care. When families move up the economic ladder, they still need support in order to afford child care. Bernelle knows that every child’s future success depends on high-quality early learning opportunities, and every parent needs child care in order to work in meaningful jobs and cover basic living expenses.
